Criticisms of "The Lost Daughter" (Newsletter No. 51)

“But what about the men?" But what about them? Make a movie about a selfish father and I’ll find him just as unsympathetic.
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There seems to be a certain overlap in how female Hollywood directors direct. A lot of focus on water and aesthetics (The Piano, By the Sea). But how much deeper should it go?
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There are two main issues I have with The Lost Daughter
1. The lack of clear structure, all the tension and build up led nowhere
2. The seeming implication that this is a feministic work that portrays the bravery and suffering of motherhood rather than sheer narcissism.

Scene by scene The Lost Daughter created interesting ambience, foreboding yet sunny. But the story never ties together (ironically at one point Leda quotes, “the center does not hold'‘) Maybe the vagueness can be passed off as a meta-expression of ambiguity and fractured motives, but to me it just seemed like a lack of a clear sense of direction. What is the director’s point? You have to clearly decide what you mean to say, even if the audience ultimately interprets it in a multitude of ways.

Also, was Leda supposed to be evil? I acknowledge the frustrations of caring for young children and being pushed to the edge with a seeming lack of support, but that does not really lead me to empathize with Leda’s irreversible actions and choices—not the day-to-day loss of patience, but rather adultery and leaving her children for 3 years. Her husband was selfish? Maybe selfish fathers are more well-known but they are in no way more acceptable to me. Leda was selfish too and clearly the spotlight of the story. Two wrongs don’t make a right, as it goes. And who are the victims? The children. Leda doesn’t know why she took the doll? Well, explore why. There is always a why. Why commit such pathologically narcissistic actions? At the end movie, Leda’s daughters happily greet her on the phone, but I just hear children accustomed to emotionally parenting their parent.


Also, Maggie Gyllenhaal cast her own husband as the home-wrecker star professor. Was he really the only right person for the role? Was it because he was willing to do it for a lower salary, was it because it was a kill-two-birds way to increase their family income? Regardless it seemed like a bit of a masochistic choice.

Is Maggie Gyllenhaal trying to tell the whole world how much she hates being a mother? It’s just a fictional movie”. What I’ve come to learn is that humans aren’t that good at compartmentalization.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” -Carl Jung